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Saturday, January 31, 2009

I’m interrupting my Countdown to Oscar for this, so I’m just going to get right to the point. I realize that I don’t fit your idea of a female moviegoer age 18-25. I look forward to films by people like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson and I would rather put a staple in my eye than see anything starring Katherine Heigl. I’ve come to terms with the fact that you don’t make movies with me in mind and I’m not holding that against you, which is why I’d like to enlighten you about a few myths that you apparently hold true, judging from the trailers for New In Town, He’s Just Not That Into You, The Ugly Truth and The Proposal, all four of which have been plaguing me for the past month.Myth 1: A Cute Girl Falling Over Is Funnier Than Any Joke Possibly Could Be

Look, I get it. You’re lazy and can’t be bothered to come up with an actual joke. Just don’t think that we don’t know that and don’t think that when we see that we think to ourselves, “Oh, her clumsiness makes her plastic Hollywood prettiness seem more relatable.” It doesn’t; it just reminds us that you can’t be bothered to put in the effort for female characters. Trailers for comedies are notorious for spoiling the funniest bits, which means that if one of the big punchlines is a girl falling over, the film itself probably has little comedic value.

Myth 2: Every Woman Is Desperate For A Husband

Now, granted, some women are desperately searching for husbands but, you know what? I think you’re partially to blame for that because you continue to imply that our only value is as someone’s wife. Getting a husband is not the top priority of every woman and some women, myself included, have no intention of ever getting married. But, of course, that reality lends less easily to the crazy-man-trapping antics you think we want to see. Man, bitches is crazy, am I right?

Myth 3: Every Woman Has A Sassy Gay/Black/Whatever Friend

First of all, gay men are rarely the sidekicks of straight women; straight women are the sidekicks of gay men. Secondly, I have never once met a black woman who begins sentences with “Girl” and ends them with “Mmm-hmmm.” I don’t know where you got your information, but you have been misled. Thirdly, maybe if you started making films by and about the minorities you pander to by tossing them a small “best friend” role here and there, your general output might seem less stale. Just a thought.

Myth 4: Women Who Like Their Jobs Are Castrating Bitches

I'm sorry that you find competent women threatening. Maybe if you spent less time denigrating them and more time focusing on and improving your own professional output you'd feel less vulnerable. Why is it a bad thing for a woman to like her job? I mean, I get that that’s counter to your preference for traditional gender roles, but in my experience a person who likes their job is generally happy and not, you know, a raging monster who must be stopped for the good of those around them.

P.S.: if a woman has never met a guy that she likes more than her job, I think that’s less a reflection of her and more a reflection of the men within her orbit.

Myth 5: Jerks Have Hidden Depths

I’ve canvassed this with other women and this is our conclusion: a guy who acts like a jerk is a jerk and the only thing he can teach you about yourself is that you need to reconsider your screening process.

In a perfect world, all of these things would be apparent and there would be no need to point them out, but here we are. I realize that if these female driven "comedies" aren't hits, you'll shrug and say that either women don't go to movies or movies with female leads don't sell tickets, rather than considering that female moviegoers simply don't want to settle for the idiocy on offer, which is a shame because I think it would be good for all of us if we could break this ridiculous cycle.

[Note: this post is part of LAMB devours the Oscars, 24 days devoted to discussing the various Oscar categories. If you haven't checked it out yet, I highly recommend it]

Although the Academy has named some pretty solid films as Best Foreign Language Feature in the past, the fact of the matter is that the way the nominees are chosen ensures the ultimate irrelevance of the category. More often than not, the most acclaimed films that international cinema has to offer are overlooked due to the politics of the nomination process. Every country is allowed to submit one film for consideration (which is good for countries with smaller film industries, but bad for countries like France, Germany, Italy or Spain who are in effect penalized for the strength of their film industries) and a committee whittles the list down to nine potential nominees. Those nine films are then screened by a 30 member committee that determines which five will get to go to the big show. It is... not the best system, especially when you consider that so many films made today are the result collaboration (both artistically and monetarily) of people from different countries, which can make it difficult to define what country a particular film properly “belongs” to.

That being said, despite the category’s shortcomings it does serve an important function by bringing attention to films that might otherwise never find an audience in the English-speaking world. This year’s nominees:

The Baader Meinhoff Complex (Germany)

Director: Uli Edel

The film follows the exploits of the Red Army Faction, a group of domestic terrorists who caused chaos in West Germany in the late 1960s and 1970s. The members of the RAF are the children of those who lived through the Nazi era and see the current political regime as just another form of Fascism, with many ex-Nazis in positions of power. To combat political oppression, the group employs kidnappings, bombings and assassinations, all in the name of making society more humane.

I’ve seen a couple of German films which deal with the issue of domestic terrorism (The Legend of Rita and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum), both of which were fairly sympathetic to the terrorists but were also released pre-2001. I’m very interested in seeing this film to compare how the issue is treated by filmmakers creating in a post-911 world.

Germany’s Track Record: 17 nominations and 3 wins (1979, 2002, 2006)

The Class (France)

Director: Laurent Cantet

The plot sounds like something right out of the Hollywood playbook – a well-meaning teacher takes on students at an inner city school, where his efforts to teach are hindered by the clashing of cultures and the generation gap. He persists even as his students challenge his methods and somehow by the end of the school year he’s accomplished his goal.

Though the bare bones of the plot are familiar from dozens of other movies, by all accounts this film delves deeper than the average “teacher movie.” The students are played by non-actors and the focus is exclusively on their lives in the classroom and the ways that they learn and relate to each other. The film has been incredibly well-received, showing up on a number of Top 10s and winning the Palm D’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

An unemployed cellist, having given up on his musical aspirations, returns to his hometown and tries to regain a sense of balance in his life. Looking through the classifieds, he finds a job which requires “assisting departures” and decides to pursue it, believing the position to be in the travel industry. When he arrives, however, he learns that the job is in a funeral home and would require him to perform the ceremonial aspects necessary before cremation can take place. He reluctantly accepts and against all odds, finds himself enjoying his new life.

I haven’t heard, well, anything about this one so I’m not really certain how it’s been received by critics, though it has won a few festival awards.

A thriller about a thug who works for a brothel owner and falls in love with one of the prostitutes. The two run away together to the countryside, where they get involved in a botched bank robbery and are forced to cool their heels on the outskirts of the town. Their lives become tied up with those of a local cop and his wife.

This is another movie that I haven’t heard much about, though it’s been much lauded in both Germany and Austria. The trailer (slightly NSFW – gotta love European cinema) is intriguing, though it seems a bit spoilery.

Austria’s Track Record: 2 nominations, 1 win (2007)

Waltz With Bashir (Israel)

Director: Ari Folman

The film follows Folman as he attempts to remember his experiences as an Israeli soldier during the 1982 war with Lebanon. His inability to recall any of the events of this period bother him and in an attempt to understand what happened – and why he might be repressing it - he seeks out former friends, fellow soldiers, a psychologist and a reporter who covered the conflict. The story is related by means of a form of animation which involves classic animation and Flash cutouts.

A mixture of forms and genres, this animated documentary is certainly the leader amongst the nominees in terms of buzz, but is also exactly the kind of film that the Academy has no idea what to do with. It has garnered a number of awards as Best Animated Feature, Best Foreign Language Feature and Best Documentary Feature.

Friday, January 30, 2009

One Day In September centers on the hostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Olympics, a story powerful enough that it doesn’t need a lot of flash to be effective. Flash is, however, what the film gives it and, by doing so, treats the story like a generic Hollywood thriller. Kevin Macdonald’s documentary isn’t a bad film, but it is a film that doesn’t seem to know where it should be centered and who ought to be its main characters. The result is an uneven film that tries to be more entertaining than it is informative.On the morning of September 5, 1972 eight Palestinian terrorists hopped the fence at the Olympic village, walked into the quarters of the Israeli men’s team and took 11 men hostage. At this point, you may be asking yourself how security was so lax as to allow that to happen and the answer is this: Germany, in an effort to rehab its image, shied away from having armed officers around the venues so as not to remind people of the last Olympics held in Germany, those held in Berlin in 1936. The film spends a lot of time focusing on the German past and the symbolic significance of the Israeli team being involved in such a crisis in Munich, where the Nazi party began its rise to power. Part of the problem with the film is the prominence that it gives to the history of the Nazis, who bear so little resemblance to the bungling German officials who figure into the hostage crisis. The time spent showing the usual stock footage of the 1936 Olympics would be better spent expanding on the conflict between Palestine and Israel, which is given only cursory attention in the film. It is, of course, a complex situation and not easily summarized but if the film had shifted its focus from the German past, cut out a few of the sports montages (of which there are several) and maybe given itself more than 90 minutes to tell its story, it may have given the film a little more weight and relevance.

The hostage crisis quickly becomes a media circus and the coverage of it seems to turn it more into “story” than fact for the others in the Olympic village. While the Israeli team is being held hostage, two of its members already murdered, life goes on in the village. Not far from the building housing the hostages, other athletes are shown sunning themselves on the lawn, playing ping pong, training for their upcoming events – because even though this terrible thing is happening, the Olympic committee has decided that the show must go on and the events will take place as planned. It is so bizarre to think of athletes competing and crowds cheering, all of them knowing that the lives of several people are being held in the balance just down the street. It’s even worse to think that later, when the terrorists and hostages are transported by helicopter to the airport, the streets become so congested with media and curious bystanders that German police can’t get through to provide some much needed backup to the ill-equipped and ill-trained officers already there.

The film consistently loses sight of what’s really important, relegating the terrorists and hostages to secondary status so that the focus can be on the German gong show. Admittedly, the series of failures on the part of the German officials took the situation from bad to worse, but what about the bigger picture? What about the impact all of this – particularly the release of the surviving terrorists by the Germans – on the already fraught relationship between Palestine and Israel? Macdonald focuses so much on the situation’s absurdities that the larger political context gets lost.

For all its problems, the film is nonetheless quite powerful, particularly the interviews with the family members of the slain Israelis. The murders were symbolic of many things to many different people, which can make it easy to forget that the dead men were actually people who left a very real void in the lives of others. The interviews Macdonald is able to conduct, including one with the only surviving terrorist, demonstrate a high level of commitment to telling this story and a desire to tell it in a full and rich way; it’s the way that the elements of the story are edited together that presents the greatest trouble.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

If you watch The Nights of Cabiria and La Dolce Vita back to back, you may get a feeling of déjà vu. There are a number of similar “episodes” in both films, but what’s astonishing to me isn’t that Federico Fellini recycles the plot points in the first place, but that he was able to create two fresh and very distinct films regardless. With the plot resting firmly on the very able shoulders of Giullieta Massina, The Nights of Cabiria is a film which is alternately delightful and heartbreaking.Massina stars as the eponymous Cabiria, a low rent prostitute who is robbed and almost drowned in the film’s opening minutes. After she’s rescued, she’s less angry at the fact of almost dying than she is that her boyfriend, Georgio, would try to kill her for so little money (40,000 lira – “They’d do it for 5,000,” a friend informs her). Cabiria’s relationship to money is an essential part of understanding her character. She accepts money as a necessity in life but doesn’t quite grasp the concept of greed, nor does she understand how money could be so important to someone that they’d kill for it. She also possesses what you could call a “pure” work ethic insofar as she refuses to accept money that she doesn’t feel she has earned. In one of the film’s episodes a movie star picks her up and takes her home, only to have his girlfriend show up. Cabiria spends the night hiding in a closet and afterwards refuses the money he attempts to give her. Money is more or less just paper to her; she doesn’t live her life in pursuit of it.

Cabiria has a keen understanding of the real value of things. In one episode she and her friends join in a pilgrimage and in the midst of the pomp and circumstance, she believes that she’s had a spiritual awakening. When it's all over, however, and the ceremonial aspects have faded away, she realizes that it was all false, that she had been caught up in the performance of religion and spirituality. “Nothing has changed,” she says recognizing that neither herself nor any of her friends has really been inspired to change their ways. No one is essentially better or worse for having attended; she and her friends are all exactly the same coming out of it as they were going in. The value of the experience, therefore, is no more or less than, say, the experience of running from the police. It’s just another thing that has occupied her time.

The loose structure of the story works particularly well with this film because it makes you focus less on the plot and more on the performance at its centre. Massina is simply terrific, the kind of actor who performs with her entire body, making the way that she moves as important as the words which she says. It’s a well-rounded performance which makes you really care about Cabiria, a character who, in other hands, you might write off as “stupid.” This is a woman who refuses to be hardened by the lessons life sees fit to teach her, who retains an unwavering optimism even in the shadow of heartbreak. There is a light that shines out of her and you want things to work out for her even as you fear that she’s setting herself up for yet another fall.

The protectiveness that the audience feels towards Cabiria is both a blessing and curse. On the one hand you’re invested in the film, but on the other hand you may find yourself too anxious about what’s going to happen to her to really enjoy the experience of watching it. This is the really big difference between Nights of Cabiria and La Dolce Vita - I enjoyed Marcello’s adventures, but I never worried about him. I worry about Cabiria - she's too good for her own good.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The supporting actor & actress categories are especially enjoyable to me because they're like the Wild West of the acting categories: anything goes. The very young have as much chance as the very old, a great comedic performance is considered just as worthy as a great dramatic performance, and even a non-actor has a real shot at claiming the prize.

And, assuming the list of winners won't end up being as effed up as the list of nominees, a comic book villain will trounce the competition. The nominees:

Josh Brolin, Milk

As the brooding and ineffectual Dan White, Brolin acts as a nice counterpoint to Sean Penn's charismatic hero Harvey Milk. The past couple of years have been good to Brolin, who played a major role in last year's Best Picture winner No Country For Old Men and starred as now former (thank God) President Bush in W. He's the only nominee who has posed any kind of threat to Heath Ledger's award domination, picking up the Best Supporting Actor prize from the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle (the only two awards Ledger didn't collect).

Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder

As uber-Method actor Kirk Lazarus, Downey is merciless as he skewers the very foundation of "serious" acting. In another year, this performance might have been overlooked but coming on the heels of Iron Man's big success, and in light The Soloist (the Oscar bait that would have seen him pushed as Best Actor) being pushed back, Downey managed to secure himself a much deserved slot. Downey's been nominated once before, as Best Actor for 1992's Chaplin, and if things stay on course, I'm sure he'll be nominated again in the years to come.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt

In Doubt Hoffman has a tricky role, playing as he does a man who might be a pedophile and whom the audience must believe could be guilty just as easily as he could be innocent. Hoffman is a great actor and while I thought he was fine here, I didn't think there was anything particularly noteworthy about this performance. It's a shame that the Academy couldn't get it up for Happy-Go-Lucky as Eddie Marsan would have been more deserving of the spot. Hoffman is the only nominee in the bunch who already has an Oscar (for 2005's Capote) and was nominated last year for Charlie Wilson's War (and should have been nominated for either The Savages or Before The Devil Knows You're Dead).

Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

He's gonna win. You know it, I know it, and hopefully the Academy's almost complete rejection of The Dark Knight doesn't prevent them from recognizing that his is the most worthy performance. In Ledger's hands, The Joker becomes more than just a cartoon villain and is easily one of the most compelling characters of 2008. Nearly everyone agrees, of course, as Ledger has won just about every award leading up to the Oscars.

Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

The surprise of the bunch, given how Revolutionary Road found itself almost entirely ignored throughout awards season. By all accounts, Shannon renders a great performance (I can't confirm that, as I have yet to see the film) as a mentally disturbed suburbanite. The general lack of affection for the film doesn't bode well for his chances, but this is likely one of those cases where the nomination itself is the reward.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

How Green Was My Valley often gets a bad rap, being as it is the winner of Best Picture in the year that Citizen Kane was also nominated. There are a number of people who like to huff and puff about this and declare it the worst Best Picture win ever, as if the Academy doesn’t have an overwhelming tendency to reward stately, well-constructed epics over subversive films that are ahead of their time (Seriously. When has this ever not happened?). Judged strictly on its own terms as a film, How Green is a fine achievement, a family saga and an elegy to a way of life in the process of fading away.The events of the film are narrated to us after the fact by the grown Huw Morgan (played superbly by Roddy McDowell), filtered through the gauzy veil of childhood perceptions and memories. Huw grows up in a picturesque Welsh valley, where the majority of the men work up the hill at the coal mine, including his father, Gwilym (Donald Crisp) and his five older brothers. The work is hard, but everyone is happy, albeit in a formal Victorian way punctuated by strict Victorian manners. When I saw the film for the first time, I was actually quite distracted by the rigid quality of the relationships between members of the family and chalked it up to a shortcoming on the part of the actors. As the film progressed, however, I realized that the formality has more to do with the particular cadence of the people in the valley and by the end I didn’t even notice it. Still, it is something that you have to get used to.

When the mine owners begin to lower wages, the problems in the valley begin. Gwilym is prepared to accept the change, confident in his belief that a man will always be able to earn what he’s worth. His sons, however, begin talking about forming a union and quickly gain the support of other workers, who agree to a strike. The strike is long and divisive and many people turn against Gwilym, who had opposed it. When the matter is eventually resolved, not all the striking workers are able to return to the mine, their places having been given to others. Two of these men are Huw’s brothers, who decide to set off for the US and thus begin the dissolution of the Morgan family. In time Huw’s eldest brother, Ivor, will be killed in the mine and his two remaining brothers will find themselves out of work and setting off for foreign lands, leaving only Huw, his parents, and Ivor’s widow Bronwyn (Anna Lee) and her baby.

Though the film is primarily concerned with the way that changes in industry and production have impacted the family unit, issues of class and manners are also at the forefront. Huw has a sister, Angharad (Maureen O’Hara) who is in love with the local preacher, Mr. Gruffyd (Walter Pidgeon). Because he has little money, he won’t pursue a relationship with her and encourages her to accept a wealthy suitor. She marries the wealthy man and moves with him to New Zealand, only to return to the valley alone. Gossip spreads through the valley about her relationship with Gruffyd, rooted less in their behavior towards one another than in the jealousy of the wealthy family’s servants towards the miner’s daughter, and the blood-thirsty attitude of other members of the parish who are ready and willing to heap scorn on anyone who doesn’t conform to social rules. That the two people at the center of the storm in this case are a "social climber" and a preacher who likes to espouse new/liberal ideas only makes them more eager to ostracize them. Class and manners come into play again when Huw has the opportunity to attend a fancy school where his origins make him a subject of mockery by both the other students and his teacher. Huw excels as a student and Gwilym, sensing the way things are fundamentally and irrevocably changing, encourages him to pursue a career as a scholar to get himself out of the valley, though Huw wishes to stay and work in the mine like the rest of his family.

Directed by the great John Ford, the film is well-paced and surprisingly compact given all that happens in it. The story comments on a number of social issues, but does so with a great deal of subtlety, suggesting more than it says and not bashing you over the head with a series of blunt points. Before seeing it I thought that it might be hokey, but it ends up being very effective, particularly in its sad final act. This is a really well-made film in both its artistic and technical aspects and while, in hindsight, not the correct choice for Best Picture, it is nevertheless a fine achievement and a fine example of Ford's skill as a filmmaker.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Common Threads is a powerful little movie that takes a very big subject – the AIDS epidemic in America – and deals with it in a very intimate way. Made in the late 1980s, the film is interesting to watch today in terms of assessing how far we’ve come in our awareness and treatment of AIDS, and how far we have left to go. This is an intense viewing experience and one which will leave you with a heavy heart, but it’s a film worth seeing – just make sure you have Kleenex close at hand.To tell their story the filmmakers create a handful of narrative threads which they proceed to weave together. There are six interview subjects who are the loved ones of people who have passed away and are memorialized with patches in the AIDS quilt. In these personalized stories the film makes an effort to show a range of experiences and lifestyles to emphasize that the virus isn’t something that just affects one segment of the population regardless of how it was initially characterized by the media and society in general. Three of these stories are about gay men, one is about a former intravenous drug user, and one is about a 12-year-old boy who contracts the virus through a blood transfusion. These people come from all walks of life and have different experiences in dealing with the disease, but they all have one thing in common: their loss leaves behind a void that nothing can fill.

While all the stories are powerful and compelling, the story of 12-year-old David Mandell is particularly moving and is related to us by his parents. A haemophiliac, David already had a more difficult life than many children. When reports surface that some blood plasma used to treat haemophilia has been tainted, his parents find themselves in an impossible position: do they risk that he may be infected from blood transfusions or do they cease the treatments even though it’s necessary to keep him alive? David continued to receive transfusions and became infected and subsequently found himself fighting two battles: one against the disease, the other against the social stigma attached to it. There’s footage of a news interview with David in which he expresses his desire to be allowed to be a normal kid, to not be isolated and treated like an entity who must be feared. It’s a heartbreaking thing to see, this child forced to grow up so fast, to deal with issues that many adults aren’t emotionally equipped to deal with.

Interspersed with the personal stories is news footage detailing the growing awareness of AIDS, spanning a number of years as concern grows throughout society. In the earliest footage knowledge is spotty at best and little effort is made to find out more. The characterization of the virus as something which affects primarily the gay community and drug users stigmatizes it, allowing the government to turn away and the rest of society to follow suit. It’s only gradually, as the death toll mounts and grows at an alarming rate and begins to spread to all corners, that it becomes a major national concern. Vito Russo, one of the interview subjects who lost his partner and was infected himself, recalls his anger at a TIME cover story in the late 1980s announcing that AIDS is now a threat to anyone and everyone. For years it ravaged the gay community while the Reagan administration and the media buried their heads in the sand, refusing to acknowledge the growing epidemic that claimed thousands because it was a “gay disease.” Once it becomes clear that it isn’t specific to gays, suddenly it's news, suddenly it's worth talking about, and the anger expressed by Russo is entirely comprehensible. As much as the film is a tribute to those who have passed, it is also an indictment of those who could have and should have done something to raise awareness of the situation but dragged their feet, doing as little as possible.

From a technical standpoint, the filmmaking is relatively basic. There’s nothing particularly fancy about the construction of the narrative, but bells and whistles aren’t necessary. The emotional impact of this film is staggering – I don’t know how a person could see it and not be moved. Personally, I’m in awe of the strength of these storytellers, many of whom were infected themselves in addition to having lost a loved one. It's a great achievement which proves that sometimes simplicity is all that's necessary.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Every year, it is inevitable that the Oscars will come around and I will have had the chance to see, at most, one of the nominated documentaries. This year is no different, as I’ve only had the chance to see Man On Wire, so I can’t personally attest to the cinematic value of 4/5s of the nominees, though I’ve heard nothing but good things about Trouble The Water and Encounters At the End of the World.

Looking at past winners, it’s hard to really find a pattern that illuminates the direction in which the Academy might go this year. Judging by the past, the Academy likes documentaries about the Holocaust (not applicable this year) and about the lives of Americans (very applicable this year).

The Betrayal

Directors: Ellen Kuras, Thavisouk Phrasavath

A chronicle of one family’s forced emigration from Laos during the Vietnam War. The film won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance and is nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

Encounters At The End of The World

Director: Werner Herzog, Henry Kaiser

This film comes from that great, mad genius Werner Herzog, who has taken his camera to Antarctica to meet the men and women pursuing scientific endeavours there. The film is also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

The Garden

Director: Scott Hamilton Kennedy

A David and Goliath story about a community garden in South Central Los Angeles under threat of being bulldozed so that a developer can build a warehouse in its place. I’m a bit surprised that this one is eligible to be nominated since it appears that it hasn’t been released in theatres yet, just screened at a film festival (then again I'm usually pretty baffled by the rules governing nominations for Documentary and Foreign Features).

Man On Wire

Director: James Marsh

This year's critical darling about the man who wire-walked between the Twin Towers has been cleaning up in awards thus far, which would suggest that it’s the front runner. I think, however, that this may actually work against it with the Academy, which may go a different way simply to avoid being derivative.

Trouble The Water

Director: Tia Lessin, Carl Deal

A first-hand account of survival in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I think that if any film is going to steal Man On Wire’s thunder, it’ll be this one. Trouble The Water and Man On Wire are the only two nominees also nominated for the PGA for Best Documentary.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

History is written by the victors, which is why it isn’t always a reliable point of reference. The Official Story is about the unwritten history which contradicts the recorded facts about hundreds of missing persons in Argentina, and one woman’s struggle to accept the part she has played in this massive conspiracy of silent complicity. It’s a powerful, poignant film that leaves a lasting impression.“I’ve always believed what other people told me,” Alicia (Norma Aleandro) says. She has never questioned the facts she teaches to the students in her history class and she has never questioned the circumstances through which her husband, Roberto (Hector Alterio), arranged the adoption of their daughter Gaby. She has always been content to let difficult questions go unasked, has never wanted to make waves. It isn’t until the arrival of Ana (Chunchuna Villafane), an old friend, that she begins to questions those things she has long accepted as the truth. Several years before Ana had disappeared and she reveals to Alicia that her marriage to a man suspected of being a subversive made her a person of interest for the government. The police brought her in for questioning and later took her to a facility where she was raped and tortured for information about her husband despite having long been out of contact with him. She reveals that there were other women at the facility, pregnant women who were taken away for a time only to return later without their children.

Roberto is anxious about Ana’s sudden reappearance, worried about what effect she’ll have on Alicia – and well he should be. Though she initially adopts a pose of defensive denial, Alicia is haunted by what Ana has told her and she is no longer able to look at her daughter without wondering. She begins looking for records and trying to discover the identity of the woman who gave birth to Gaby, which eventually leads her to Sara (Chela Ruiz), a woman who might be the girl’s grandmother. Sara’s pregnant daughter was taken away five years earlier and hasn’t been seen since. Alicia and Sara develop a friendship, of sorts, as they try to determine whether Sara really is Gaby’s grandmother, but whether she is or not isn’t the point of the film. The point is in the moral dilemma that both of these women face as they attempt to wrap their minds around the choices they will have to make should Sara prove to be Gaby’s grandmother. Alicia loves Gaby and doesn’t want to lose her, but she also doesn’t want her to be another victim of this dark government plot and have her life be defined by a lie. Sara wants to know for certain what happened to her daughter and wants the grandchild who would provide some connection to her, but would she be willing to take Gaby from Alicia? Of all the characters in the film, Roberto is the least innocent but even he makes a good point when he angrily asks Alicia if she thinks it’s fair for Gaby to lose another mother.

While the smaller and more personal story is the film’s primary concern, there’s also a subplot which deals with questions of history in a larger context. At school Alicia does battle with a student who refuses to accept the recorded version of events and openly questions the facts Alicia is attempting to teach. At first Alicia is strict with him, arguing that history is history, but as her personal journey takes her places she had never imagined going she begins to admire his refusal to accept information without first questioning it. This change in her is signalled through a change in her dress and demeanour: her hair hangs loose, no longer pulled tightly back, and her dress becomes slightly less conservative. She also becomes more open to friendship with a fellow teacher, one who has learned the price of dissent the hard way and worries for their mutual student even as he admires him.

The Official Story is not a film about answers, but about the importance of asking questions. Its strength derives not from the larger political context of its plot, but from the personal context of its characters. It is aided in no small part by wonderful performances across the board, especially that of Aleandro, who carries the story and never hits a false note. It’s an intense performance with subtleties that only begin to become apparent after you’ve seen it, when images and moments come floating back to you from this engaging and wonderful film.

Friday, January 23, 2009

“What does it matter if an individual is shattered if only justice is resurrected?” Though ostensibly a biopic, The Life of Emile Zola is really only concerned with Zola’s life insofar as it facilitates an exploration of the principle at the heart of this question. As a man of means and access to a public forum, Zola sees it as his duty to shine a light on injustice, even if it puts himself at risk. The film is much more concerned with the idea of exposing corruption for the good of society than it is with the facts of Zola’s life, though it does go through the motions of a few conventions of the biopic genre.The story begins with Zola (Paul Muni) as a starving young artist, burning the pages he’s written La Boheme-style. The film more or less ploughs through his early years, giving us glimpses of the work he does as a journalist which in turn inspires his novels. Those novels make him wealthy but also put him on the radar of people in power, who see him as an agitator with a troubling habit of exposing the various ways that the aristocracy takes advantage of the lower classes. Zola won’t be silenced by threats and keeps on writing gritty, realistic stories which expose the nasty underbelly of society, eventually becoming an influential and respected man of letters. Just as Zola is settling into a quiet life out of the public eye, Alfred Dreyfus (Joseph Schildkraut) is arrested and tried for treason.

It will be years before Zola actually becomes involved in Dreyfus’ defence, years that Dreyfus spends imprisoned on an island, his clothes becoming rags, bugs infesting his cell. Mrs. Dreyfus (Gale Sondergaard) is eventually able to appeal to Zola by showing him proof that not only was her husband framed, but that officers of the highest rank are aware of it and, indeed, helped to accomplish it. Zola publishes his famous “I Accuse” paper which results in the military taking him to court and the pubic turning violently against him. The trial is a joke, destined to find Zola guilty and exonerate the military of any wrongdoing, but Zola maintains his cool throughout and when the time comes, delivers a speech imploring the jury to save the army by holding it accountable for the crimes committed in its name. Zola loses the trial but, as he states, “truth is on the march” and once the truth starts to come out, there’s no stopping it.

The movie plays fast and loose with history, but that doesn’t particularly bother me. History unfolds in a calamitous way that doesn’t lend itself easily to narrative, particularly to the more compact narratives required in film. So, if a movie needs to nip and tuck the facts for the sake of telling a good story, I think that’s forgivable. That being said, I think it’s a bit disingenuous for the film to make such a show of championing truth when it goes out of its way to avoid mentioning anti-Semitism, which was the defining factor in the real Dreyfus’ persecution. There is a brief mention that Dreyfus is Jewish, but the issue is thereafter glossed over, which is a shame since a real exploration of the issue would have added depth to the story and made it all the more powerful.

While Zola is without question the protagonist of the film, I don’t think that it should necessarily be considered a biopic because the only real purpose of the scenes depicting Zola’s early life are to establish him as a man who holds the pursuit of truth in the highest regard. The centrepiece of the story – the trial and, in particular, Zola’s speech about the right of the people to call those in power to account – isn’t about Zola at all, but military corruption. That speech, it must be said, is very effectively rendered. Director William Dieterle places the camera where the jury box would be so that Muni delivers the speech directly to the audience and he speaks so eloquently and authoritatively that it’s easily one of the best speeches in film. Muni, who plays Zola as both a young and an old man, is effective throughout but seems to be most alive as the older Zola, which makes it all the more unfortunate that the film doesn’t limit its focus to the Dreyfus affair

Thursday, January 22, 2009

They're finally here! They're finally here! The full list of Oscar nominees is under the cut, but first and foremost I'd like to officially start my Countdown to Oscar, which will be running from today until the big day and and during which I'll be taking a look at some of the Best Picture, Documentary and Foreign Language winners of years past.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Well, tomorrow is the big day when we see who gets snubbed, who scores big, and who shows up as a surprise. As usual, it's not over until it's over, though it can be expected that Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Kate Winslet will be having a very good day - and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Sally Hawkins can slip into that unusually crowded Best Actress category (though I wouldn't put money on it). Without further delay, my predictions:

For Your Consideration is David Guest’s satirical take on the Oscars or, to be more specific, on how Oscar “buzz” can shape the direction and marketing of a film and its stars. I’m a big fan of Guest’s early work - This Is Spinal Tap and Waiting For Guffman rank amongst my favorite comedies - but I find that his films become increasingly uneven as time goes on. This one is no different, consisting of a very funny first half and a second half that left me distinctly cold.Unlike Guest’s previous efforts, For Your Consideration isn’t a mockumentary; it’s a straight-up behind the screens movie. It follows the making of a small indie movie called “Home For Purim,” which stars Marilyn Hack (Catherine O’Hara, perhaps the most underrated comedic talent in films today), a talented actress who somehow never found her break into stardom; Victor Allen Miller (Harry Shearer), best known for commercials where he dresses like a hotdog; Callie Webb (Parker Posey), stand-up comedian turned actress; Brian Chubb (Christopher Moynihan); and Mary Pat Hooligan (Rachel Harris), a method actress whose name isn’t actually “Mary Pat Hooligan” but who insists on being called that on the set because it’s the name of her character.

“Home For Purim” is an over-wrought family drama which is set during WWII and comes complete with dying mother, brother on leave from the navy, and sister with a secret (“I met a nice man,” she announces, “Her name is Mary Pat!”). A rumor gets started on the internet that Marilyn may be on her way to an Oscar nomination for her work in the film and this one little rumor, started by someone who claims to have visited the set, quickly snowballs and sparks similar buzz for both Victor and Callie, making this little indie a matter of great interest for the studio that will be distributing it (headed up by Ricky Gervais, who doesn’t get nearly enough to do here). In order to capitalize on the buzz and make the film more accessible to audiences, the studio decides to make some changes, which includes renaming it “Home For Thanksgiving” in an effort to “tone down” the Jewish element of the story. Meanwhile the hype continues to build and build until Oscar nomination day and then, well, let’s just say that it doesn’t end happily for all involved.

With each film that Guest and company make, the comedy seems to get broader, becoming more parody than satire. While the characters in these films have always been ridiculous, they seem to be becoming less realistically so with each outing and the situations that they find themselves in are becoming less clever and more over-the-top. This isn’t to say that there aren't little nuggets of brilliance scattered here and there, but they seem to be becoming fewer and farther between. One of my favorite things about this film is the absolutely spot-on send up of Access Hollywood with Jane Lynch as the Nancy O’Dell-esque co-host, but even that begins to wear thin as the film approaches its end.

Now, about the end. The first half of the film is fun, making light of the way that buzz is manufactured and can take on a life of its own before a film has even entered into post-production, but the second half of the film is decidedly mean-spirited and actually made me kind of uncomfortable. It’s one thing to take a character with an inflated ego and cut them down to size, but it’s another to take a character who is already at their lowest point and have another character basically screaming “loser” in their face. I think I laughed only once during the second half – when Marilyn, buying into the star-making hype, undergoes a series of plastic surgeries and shows up looking distinctly like Guest mainstay Jennifer Coolidge – and that was due more to surprise than anything else.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Once is a beautiful little gem of a film, a simple story told in a simple way and yet more effective and moving than about 90% of the big-budget, big-name movies that get tossed out in any given year. It’s kind of a shame that it was released in 2007, which saw such an abundance of great films, rather than 2008, which has paled in comparison and in which a “little film that could” would stand a better chance at Oscar glory.Once is filmed in a very realist style, with handheld cameras, natural lighting and dialogue that has an off-the-cuff feel to it. It consists of two characters credited as “Guy” and “Girl,” two ordinary people brought together by their love of making music. Guy (Glen Hansard) is a musician who divides his time between busking and working at his father’s vacuum repair shop. One of his late-night performances catches the attention of Girl (Marketa Irglova), who seeks him out the following day in the hope that he can fix her vacuum. After some cautious back and forth, Guy learns that she plays the piano and convinces her to give him a demonstration. They go to a nearby music store and play one of Guy’s songs together (“Falling Slowly,” a beautiful piece which won the Oscar for Best Song), falling in love in the process. It’s a beautiful thing... but there are complications.

She lives with her mother and young daughter and she has a husband who still lives in the Czech Republic. Far from being over, the marriage is instead in a state of limbo, which presents something of a problem for Guy, who has fallen for her pretty hard and wants her to go to London with him, where he hopes to get his break. Though she isn’t free to be with him, she will make music with him and after renting a studio they enlist a trio of buskers to complete their band and record a demo.

Hansard and Irglova, musicians by trade rather than actors, glow as they’re performing and the songs have a certain unmanufactured magic to them. Acting-wise, Irglova is a bit stiff in the scenes where she isn’t performing, but Hansard seems to be a natural. There’s one scene in particular that’s especially well-done by Hansard: Guy, lonely and desperate to connect, asks Girl to spend the night with him and is rejected. The moment is almost hard to watch because Hansard allows Guy to be so intensely vulnerable, and I think there are a number of trained actors who couldn’t have pulled it off so well.

Writer/director John Carney allows the action to unfold in a very unobtrusive way, letting the story be guided by the flow of the music. It’s very much a performance film and it starts to feel more like watching a great little concert than a movie the longer it goes on. What you end up with is a very special and very wonderful movie of the kind you don’t see very often. If you haven’t seen it yet, go out and get it – you won’t regret it.

Monday, January 19, 2009

James Marsh’s Man On Wire is about a man with a dream. It’s as simple as that. His dream – to walk a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers – might not be comprehensible to everyone, but it’s difficult not to admire his dedication to making it a reality and more difficult still not to be in awe of the fact that he is the only person who will ever do what he did, who will ever see the world from that particular vantage point. His scheme is audacious and so too is the movie.Part of what makes Man On Wire so completely engrossing is that it unfolds like a first-rate heist movie: a man has a scheme he wants to pulls off, he puts together a team to accomplish it, they go through various stages of planning, and then they do it – they pull off the “artistic crime of the century.” The story is related through interviews, actual footage, and reconstructions using actors, this last element playing up the caper aspect and giving the film a marvellous sense of whimsy.

Now, about the man who makes it all happen. He is Philippe Petit, a French high-wire artist whose charisma and enthusiasm make it easy to understand how he was able to talk people into helping him accomplish his grand, crazy dream. He tells us that as a child he was always climbing, that he had a compulsion to go higher and higher and how it seemed only natural for him to become a tightrope walker. He describes his feelings upon learning about the WTC and knowing that he just had to put a wire between the towers and walk it. You get the sense that he feels as though it’s what he was put on earth to do; to suspend himself in the air between two of the world’s tallest buildings.

The plan comes to fruition in 1974, when Phillipe and three other men are able to sneak to the top of the two towers (amazingly, not only are they able to sneak themselves up, but they’re able to sneak up all their equipment as well). Prior to the big day they had made several trips to the towers, mapping out the spots where the wires would be anchored and, even more importantly, how the guy-wires would be placed. The plan for getting the wire from one tower to another is about as crazy and genius as the goal itself and if you don’t know how they did it, I don’t want to spoil it for you here. Needless to say, though, there is a pretty large margin of error when it comes to whether the wire actually will get from one tower to the other, and for whether Petit will in fact make it out there without getting caught. The set-up areas are both monitored by guards and Petit describes himself and one of his cohorts dragging a cable up to the roof right under the nose of a guard (whom Petit swears looked right at him). That they somehow managed to avoid being apprehended just adds to the sense that it was all meant to be, that the towers were built for Phillipe to walk between them, that Phillipe was built to walk between the towers.

Phillipe manages to stay on the wire for about 45 minutes and cross back and forth eight times before being coaxed off by the threat of a police helicopter swooping down to pluck him off (which sounds like a recipe for disaster to me, but luckily it didn’t come to that). Phillipe is arrested but, ultimately, the consequences of his adventure are minimal and he’s even issued a lifetime pass to the observation deck of the towers. The elephant in the room is, of course, the fate of the towers, which the film never mentions (not that it has to). It’s the right decision – this is a story of triumph and imagination and it’s light, happy ending is completely deserved.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Better late than never, though in my defense I wanted to hold off until I'd had the opportunity to see a couple more films before making my list (sadly it looks like The Wrestler won't be here for a while, if at all, and Frozen River and Synechdoche, New York never made it). So here it is, my Top 10 of 2008:

A quiet little character film with a bittersweet ending that will leave you lamenting its honesty. Great performances abound, starting with Richard Jenkins who finally gets a shot at the lead after toiling in character parts for decades.

The high-water mark of the comic book genre. I don’t know how the next instalment in the Batman series can possibly top it, but I’m waiting with baited breath to see. Heath Ledger’s untimely death was tragic but at least he got to go out on a high note, ending his career with a truly amazing performance.

A timely film with a lot of heart and a fantastic performance by Sean Penn. Director Gus Van Sant deftly blends fiction with news and documentary footage to raise this story above the confines of its genre.

This is a film which positively hums with energy, weaving a spell with its Dickensian tale of poverty, enduring love and, ultimately, triumph of the little guy over seemingly insurmountable obstacles. A brutal and beautiful film.

This latest release from Pixar captured my heart, which came as a surprise to me because I’m generally not big on animated films. It succeeds on all levels: it looks great, it has a strong message, and it managed to make a trash compacting robot a compelling protagonist.

More than any other film I saw this year, Mike Leigh’s latest made me feel, well, happy. Playing the eternally chipper lead character, Sally Hawkins renders the best performance of the year and makes it seem effortless.

This was one of the first theatrical releases I saw this year and it has stayed with me ever since. Jeremy Podeswa’s poetic examination of the power of memory is a beautiful film which stands the test of time and stands up after multiple viewings. No film moved me more in 2008 than this one.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

The premise is simple: there’s a man in a tree. At the bottom of the tree are five teenagers who want to beat him up. He’s willing to stay in the tree waiting them out; they’re willing to stay at the bottom waiting him out. Day turns to night and night turns back to day. The result is an effective character study which examines assumptions about race, class and sex and how popular culture has blurred the lines of social categorization.The man in the tree is Murray (David Hewlett), an advertising executive who goes for a walk through a park, gets into a scuffle with a teen named James (Kevin Duhaney) and subsequently finds himself being chased by James and his friends. In his efforts to escape Murray climbs a tree but unfortunately leaves his briefcase at the bottom of it. The teens find the briefcase and then look up and find Murray, thus beginning a stand-off which will last all night.

The teens try various means to get Murray out of the tree. They attempt to climb up after him but, in this instance, Murray has the advantage because being safely ensconced on a branch with all his limbs free, all he has to do is give a swift kick to the head of whoever is making his way up. They attempt to stone him but he catches the rocks and throws them back and they have a greater impact going down than they do coming up. Shark (Cle Bennett), the leader of the group, decides that they’ll just wait for Murray to come down, reasoning that he’ll have to eventually. Murray knows that this is true but is counting on a few possibilities: a) the teens will get bored and decide that he’s not worth it given that they already have his briefcase and his wallet; b) morning will come and his predicament will be discovered by joggers; c) he can make the members of the group turn on each other.

The ensuing psychological warfare shifts the balance in Murray’s favour. It’s his job to read people, to figure out what’s going on in their heads so that he’ll know how to manipulate them into buying his products. He can recognize that KC (Carter Hayden) is a manufactured thug who has cribbed his speech pattern and attitude from pop culture and adopted his style from department stores because, despite his posing, he’s able to nail the brand and value of Murray’s briefcase. “I can see right into you because I made you,” Murray tells him. “I dressed you. You reek of every billboard, every magazine cover, every commercial I put out over the last two years. You’re a perfect demographic fit: mid-teen, male, upper-middle income, bored, hip-hop listening, underage drinking, pathologically masturbating little consumer.” In his savage exposure of KC, Murray is able to cause a rift amongst the group but he doesn’t give the kids enough credit for being able to see through him as well. Kelly (Jessica Greco) and James are easily able to peg him for his own shortcomings as a lacklustre husband and uninvolved parent, which stops Murray short and cuts him to the core.

The revelations which are made about the characters during the course of the film are occasionally predictable, but the end result is still an effective and engrossing story. I stumbled across this one on TV when I was flipping around during the commercials while watching another show and I couldn’t stop watching because writer/director William Phillips is able to make what could be a very static story incredibly compelling. The film does make one misstep which involves an underworld figured called The Raven and his gang who, for their few minutes onscreen, take the story way over the top, but other than that this is a very strong effort.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Year: 1972Director: Francis Ford CoppolaGreat Because...: If there was ever a finale more heavy with symbolism, I don't think I've seen it. These final moments say it all: what Michael has become, what he has abandoned in the process, and how life for everyone around him will be irrecovably changed.Michael Corleone has just consolidated his power and brought a renewed sense of calm to the business side of his family. The personal side of his family, however, is another matter. Kay, having been told that Michael ordered the murder of his brother-in-law, Carlo, confronts him, desperate for him to confirm that he's still the man she thought he was. Michael denies any wrongdoing and, for a moment, Kay is appeased.

Kay leaves the room, turning back just in time to see Michael officially confirmed as "Don Corleone." As she watches her worst fears being realized, the door to Michael's office is closed on her, locking her out of part of his life forever. There are no words during this final moment but absolutely none are required; Diane Keaton's face says everything that could possibly need to be said. The division the door represents is not just between Michael and Kay, but between the idealistic/good Michael who wants to be different from his family and the dark/bad Michael who is capable of anything. It's an amazing, spellbinding close to a great film.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Burn After Reading is a farcical look at paranoia, national security, and spy games that manages to be equal parts funny and sad, shallow and deep. In it characters stumble into a web of political intrigue that no one really comprehends, mostly because there’s essentially nothing to comprehend because they only think that they’re in the middle of something. I don’t know that it’s entirely successful as a film, but I liked it just enough to recommend it.At the centre of the maelstrom that will become this plot is Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), who is let go from his position as an analyst at the CIA and decides to use his newfound free time to write his memoirs, which his wife Katie (played by a wonderfully flinty Tilda Swinton) thinks would be of little appeal to readers anywhere. Katie is carrying on an affair with Harry (George Clooney), who is also married, and planning to divorce Osbourne. As part of that effort, she copies financial information from his computer to a disc (also, inadvertently, copying parts of the memoir) and that disc ends up being lost at a gym where it is found by Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Frances McDormand). Linda needs money for a series of plastic surgeries she’s decided she wants – nay, needs - and Chad comes up with the idea to ransom the disc.

Things get increasingly convoluted. When Osbourne refuses to pay for the return of the disc, Linda decides to try to sell it to the Russians (why the Russians? you might ask and you would be joined by pretty much everyone other than Linda). Meanwhile, Harry – who Linda meets over the internet and begins dating - becomes increasingly paranoid as he realizes that he’s being followed, and the CIA, having been tipped off by the Russian embassy about the attempted sale of “information,” is baffled by the various goings-on they witness through subsequent surveillance (“They all seem to be sleeping together,” a perplexed agent informs his supervisor).

The set-up for the story is a bit slow – I’d go so far as to say that the first half-hour plods along – but once the ball gets rolling, the plot unwinds itself at an almost dizzying speed. To be honest, I didn’t really start to like the movie until Pitt showed up and proceeded to be awesome during every moment he was on-screen. He has so many great scenes, from his initial phone conversation with Osbourne where he adopts a raspy voice to extort him (“I thought you might be worried... about the security... of your shit.”), to his face-to-face meeting with Osbourne where he keeps squinting his eyes in an attempt to appear tough. This last scene ends with Osbourne illuminating all the reasons why Chad is stupid including the fact that he came to the meeting on a bike, and all Chad gets out of it is that Osbourne has mistaken his bike for a Schwinn. Pitt is genius at being a moron.

The comedy that is Chad is offset by a few more serious elements: Linda’s self-esteem issues which manifest themselves in both her desire for plastic surgery and her desperation for the approval of the men she meets over the internet (she cites sense of humour as an important factor and yet when one dates fails to pass the test, she sleeps with him anyway), and her boss’ (Richard Jenkins) infatuation with her which leads him to involve himself in an increasingly volatile situation despite his reservations. But for all that, this is a comedy and one that, in its brilliant final exchange, effectively summarizes the insanity of the last decade.

Monday, January 5, 2009

John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt is a morality play about the nature and power of suspicion. It’s an effectively ambiguous bit of storytelling but, from a technical perspective, the film is ultimately rather uneven. The performances, however, are uniformly engrossing and the film’s take on gender politics is utterly fascinating.It's 1964 and at St. Nicholas school Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) rules with an iron fist, striking fear into the hearts of the students and the other nuns alike, particularly young Sister James (Amy Adams). When Donald Miller (Joseph Foster) – one of her students and the only African-American student at the school – is called from her class for a private conference with Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and returns behaving strangely and with the faint smell of alcohol on his breath, Sister James’ suspicions are aroused and she feels compelled to share them with Sister Aloysius.

What follows is a battle of wills between Flynn and Aloysius which is as much about Donald Miller as it is their differing views on the church – Flynn is progressive, Aloysius staunchly conservative – and a general battle of the sexes. While Sister James begins to change her mind regarding whether she thinks anything untoward actually did take place, Aloysius charges forward in her crusade, determined to force Flynn out one way or another, even attempting to rally Donald’s mother (Viola Davis in a small but unforgettable performance) to the cause. The question of Flynn’s guilt or innocence, however, is not the central concern of the story; it’s what Aloysius is willing to sacrifice in her relentless pursuit.

The relationship between Flynn and Aloysius – indeed, between men and women in the story – is interesting. As principal, Aloysius is a figure of authority, but as a woman within the Catholic hierarchy, she also has little to no power in the grand scheme of things. When Flynn comes to her office for a meeting, he takes her seat behind her desk and waits to be served tea by her and Sister James. He must be deferred to just as, if Aloysius wishes to do anything about her suspicions, she must defer to the judgement of the bishop and if she wants to know about Flynn’s experiences in previous parishes, she’s expected to speak to the priest there rather than a nun. Flynn is infuriated by the suggestion of impropriety not just because it’s an ugly thing to be accused of but because, as far as he’s concerned, Aloysius has no right to question him because there are no circumstances under which he’s answerable to her. He makes her out to be the villain for even daring to question him and in her solo crusade the film seems to take his side, though I disagree. When it comes to the suggestion that a child might be being abused, I think it’s fair to err on the side of caution and investigate. Aloysius asks him to explain two facts which he confirms as true: he had a private conference with the boy in the rectory and the boy had consumed some alcohol. Her questions are relevant and it would irresponsible not to ask them regardless of Flynn’s view of their power relationship.

Flynn is a man of contradictions. He believes that the church needs to be more open, that its members need to become like family to the parishioners because, as he sees it, there is no difference between them and the people. This concept of sameness, that no one is elevated above another by virtue of being a member of the church, does not extend to his relationships with the nuns. He and Aloysius are not the same; he is above her because he’s a priest and she’s a nun. “You have no right to act on your own,” he tells her upon learning that she’s spoken to a nun at his previous parish. “You have taken vows, obedience being one! You answer to us!” Not “God” but “us,” meaning the priests. Furthermore, while he sets himself apart by being a progressive Catholic, he nonetheless falls back on traditional ideas about the balance of power between the genders in his efforts to put Aloysius in her place. He doesn’t know how to deal with an assertive woman like Aloysius; he prefers women of the more meek and submissive variety like Sister James who, though she brings the initial questions to light also eagerly accepts his explanation as the gospel and is willing to drop the matter immediately.

The performances are all good but the direction by Shanley is lacking. There’s always an issue when a play makes the transition to the screen because what seems alive on the stage can seem static and limp on the screen. In his efforts to keep the film moving the way that a film should, Shanley makes some strange choices and is a little too liberal with heavy handed symbolism and because of this the performances aren’t really allowed to just be performances, they’re also being relied upon to buoy up the story, which is a heavy burden.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Primary Differences: With regards to the basic turns of the plot, the film is pretty faithful to the novel. However, when it comes to the complexities of the characters, the film sells the novel short. The film presents things in a very black and white manner, while the novel is all about the various shades of gray which exist in the relationships between the characters.For The Book: The first person narrative related by Celie through a series of letters cuts straight to the heart. We’re brought directly into her thoughts as she experiences incredible hardship and, every once in a while, moments of supreme joy. The characters created by Alice Walker are so rich and deep that even those who do bad things are not simplified to the point where they can be called “villains.”

For The Film: First and foremost, the film has the absolutely stellar central performance by Whoopi Goldberg. It’s a soulful portrayal completely lacking in vanity; one of the very best ever captured on film. Hers is surrounded by a multitude of other great performances, namely from Margaret Avery and Oprah. Also of note is the film’s beautiful cinematography, particularly during the scene which inspires the title.

Winner: Book. On the one hand, it’s refreshing to see a film that not only focuses on the experiences of people of color, but specifically on the experiences of women of color; but on the other hand, it’s also important to look at the framework within which these experiences are portrayed. The women in this film are portrayed in a way that is nothing but sympathetic, but these portrayals come at the expense of the male characters who are shown in one of two ways: bad and cruel, or good and stupid. The relationships between men and women in the film are universally portrayed as bad, in one way or another, and stripped of the intricacy with which they were granted in Walker’s novel. The relationships in the novel are not nearly so simplistic or cut and dried, even the abusive relationship between Celie and her husband, Mister.

The female characters make the transition from page to screen largely unscathed, but by sacrificing the complexities of the male characters, the film makes them seem less human and robs the story of some of its depth.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Focus is unquestionably an important part of telling a story, but when that focus is as narrow and singular as it is in Kardia, it suffocates the narrative. This is a film that aspires to be meditative and deep but is so lifeless and stiff that it plays like a bad student film. Its protagonist, in her role as narrator, expresses a lot of ideas about the heart, ideas which I suppose are meant to make the audience reflect on the meaning of life and love and whatever, but it’s all so hollow and trite that all I found myself reflecting on was the fact that I just wasted an hour and a half of my life.Kardia begins at the end, with Hope (Mimi Kuzyk) walking across a courtyard and collapsing, her heart – which we will find has always been fragile – having given out. She tells us the story of her life: how she was abandoned as an infant and found by a man (Peter Stebbings) who went on to raise her as his own, how he taught her about airplanes and solar eclipses, amongst other things. It’s discovered that Hope has a heart condition that will require an experimental procedure which involves Hope as well as a blood donor having open heart surgery at the same time in order to create a circuit so that the blood goes from the donor, through Hope and back through the donor. Her pseudo-father agrees to be the donor and the procedure is a success. Hope grows up and adores her father, whom we see teaching her various life lessons. All is well... or perhaps not.

What is real and what is not is never certain in this film. We learn that the man Hope refers to as “Dad” was actually a stranger who volunteered to be her donor after seeing her picture in the paper and that he died on the operating table. As a child, Hope constructs a fantasy relationship with this man, whom she knows only through a photograph of the two of them taken just before the operation, and is actually raised by a woman she refers to as Auntie Floorie (Donna Goodhand) who was sent by social services.

In theory I have no issue with this twist of the plot, it’s the execution that bothers me because it’s so sloppy. All Hope has of Dad is that one picture and the memories she has created for herself and when she gets hold of the hospital records and discovers that her donor was an unnamed volunteer, she’s shocked, which would imply that she had no idea that the man in the photograph was not, in fact, her father. However, even in her fantasy version of events where she’s raised happily by Dad, he finds her abandoned in the woods, which would imply that she’s always known that he wasn’t her father. We’re never really clear about what Hope knows and when she knows it, which robs the revelation – if it is a revelation because, again, either she knew or didn’t know that he wasn’t her father - of the impact it should have.

This film fails because it’s a prime example of “tell” rather than “show.” It informs us of emotions rather than evoking them and it reduces whatever warmth might be produced by the fantasy parenting sequences to nothing by being overly clinical in its exploration of the meaning of the heart. There are good ideas here, but the execution is poor.